StoryNarasimha Reddy is a powerful politician in Aanandapuram of Andhra Pradesh. He is a reasonable guy and he wants to distribute the power that is dominated by Reddy’s to another group that is economically backward. He asks his lieutenant Veerabhadrayya to take over the responsibility of nominating candidates from the other caste. Nagamani Reddy (Kota Srinivasa Rao) who don’t like the other caste people to come up poisons the mind of Narasimha Reddy. Hurt by the sudden turnaround of Narasimha Reddy, Veerabhadrayya starts his own faction to contest in elections. In the process Narasimha Reddy kills Veerabhadrayya and his elder son Shankar. Pratap Ravi who is never interested in the feuds has no option left now but for wage a war against the family of Narasimha Reddy. The rest of the story is all about how he fights and kills the family members of Narasimha Reddy and how he climbs up the ladder to become an alternate system using the political patronage given by Shivaji Rao (Shatrughna Sinha).

Artists PerformanceMost of the actors are from other languages except for Kota and Subhalekha Sudhakar. Vivek Oberai is exceptionally good in the role of protagonist. He is so good that you will see only the character and not the actor. Kota Srinivasa Rao is excellent in the role of a poisonous elderly person. Sushant Singh did a brief role of hero’s brother and he is extremely good. Abhimanyu Singh who did the role of Bokka Reddy is exceptional. Shatrughan Sinha is cool in the role of film star turned politician. Radhika Apte is fine. All the actors have performed with ease.

Technical departmentsThis story is based on the life story of Paritala Ravi and Obul Reddy. Though RGV claims it as a fictional story, major killing incidents and character traits are taken from the real life characters of two warring families. However, he modified the story happening over 20 years into two years to make the movie interesting. He has also changed the sequences of few events to give a logical ending to part one (for example, Obul Reddy is killed after the Rama Naidu studios bomb blast). However there is no proper lip-sync for most of the actors.

Screenplay of the movie is neat. Direction is intense. There are two sides to the orientation. Since it’s based on real lives, people would like to know what has exactly happened and the get satisfied by looking at the way those scenes are canned. On the flip side, people who are not interested in knowing the history might not connect to the movie. Telugu people are used to watch the melodramatic violence and factionism in Telugu films. The story telling in this movie takes docu-style.

Cinematography by Amol Rathod is good. RGV is following tight close-ups in his movies since Sarkar and this film too has tight close-ups. Dialogues by Nageswara Rao should have been better. Background music by Dharam Sandeep is impact-making. Fights by Javed Eijaz are realistic. Ram Gopal Varma conveniently avoided showing bomb blast scenes since they require more budget. Editing is adequate. Ram Gopal Varma gave voice over to the movie. Though his voice sounds little strange, the emotion in his voice helps it. We expect a better dubbing. Producers should have guts to invest in such a movie that doesn’t have anything except violence that required for a formulaic blockbuster in Telugu.

AnalysisI do generally have the habit of bifurcating the movie into first half and second half. But the entire movie is like first half as the ending of the movie appear like a pause for the second part of the movie (Rakta Charitra II) which is going to release on 19 November. The movie mostly concentrates on rich-poor conflict and counter killings in the first half. Movie gets smooth and colorful from the time actor/politician character enters. Rakta Charitra movie is interesting for me because I am always interested in these kind of bio-pics where we can relate what we heard/read to what we see on the screen. All those people who have the same curiosity as me will get satisfied with the movie. It might be little disappointing for the people who see this movie as an independent film with no Paritala Ravi angle attached to it.